The People: Jay Erker & Guru Rugu Ep. 9
Sunday, November 17 at 3 p.m.
KCHUNG 1630AM Listen Live
The People Radio on iTunes
Join hosts Ben White and Mathew Timmons Sunday, November 17 at 3 p.m. on KCHUNG 1630AM if you're in or around Chinatown Los Angeles or listen live on the KCHUNG webstream. The People will include guests Jay Erker & Guru Rugu.
Jay Erker’s Invitation to Collaborate: Art Work was an online project running from June 10 to August 9, 2013 and began from a simple premise: her full-time job took away much of the time that she would rather spend thinking, experiencing, making, and engaging with art and the art community in Los Angeles. Not only that, she was thinking about how the current economy has influenced our art making. Having and sustaining a career in art is near impossible. But we make art anyway, we participate in lectures, attend art shows and performances, we volunteer our time and support our friends. We do this not necessarily because we aspire to make a living with our art but because we enjoy it. It is an imperative.
Jay Erker invited her friends and friends of friends on facebook to participate in a collaboration with her by sending instructions for performances, actions, artworks, etc., for her to perform/execute at work. Jay Erker’s work displayed at General Projects comprises a selection of collaborations she completed with more than 60 artists over a two month period. Invitation to Collaborate: Art Work shows that it is possible for us to create opportunities for ourselves, without having to wait for institutions or galleries to tap us on the shoulder and validate what we do.
We can do it for ourselves.
Jay Erker co-directs Weekend, an artist-run space, and is a Los Angeles based multimedia artist whose recent work focuses on collaborative actions that draw awareness to the possibilities and potentialities inherent in the ordinary workaday, everyday. Underlining each action is the suggestion of our ability to act autonomously within the imposed confines of social, economic, and political structures. This approach can be seen in her recently completed Facebook project, “Invitation to Collaborate: Art Work”, where she collaborated with over 60 friends and guests to complete artworks and performances while at work, all documented on the Facebook event page. She has exhibited and performed at various non-commercial spaces in Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, New York.
Guru Rugu's Tractatus is a semi-monthly inspir[r]ational publication series which aims to inspire and motivate seekers and heathens alike via glorious tracts, posters, prayer cards, beach towels, hippy shit and more. Guru Rugu’s Tractatuswill be distributed and on display during an exhibition at Insert Press!
Opening Night Event: Convert Your Shirt! (or Tote!)
Dear dears—please join us in a baptism of ink by bringing your boring, old, misguided, naïve, not-naïve-enough, worn out, un- or under-used t-shirts and/or tote-bags and CONVERT them! With the aid of Guru Rugu’s specially trademarked baptismal design, and the screen-shamanic assistance of Maggie Lomeli of Gray Area Print, you can immediately convert these vessels via a fresh, new, inspir[r]ational message from yours truly, printed on-site over the tote or shirt’s original wicked logo, or turned inside-out! In mere seconds, you’ll become a humble Dabblerist apologist who’s unafraid to proclaim your confusion while dériving at Whole Foods, MOCA, the Oinkster, or any other totebag- or t-shirt-providing den-of-sin! Plus, you’ll become a living, walking billboard extension of Guru Rugu’s Tractatus, an inspirational publication series! Oh, and we’ve got two designs to choose from, including one especially for adjunct instructors in need!
Guru Rugu is a celebrated best-selling self-published self-helper from Los Angeles who has changed the lives of millions with his simple but effective experimental meditations. He has been helping "turn your desperation into inspiration" since 1955 when he helped co-found the Los Angeles Meditation Ghostwriters Guild Local #012, where he still serves as Chief Meditating Officer (CMO) and Intern Coordinator. In 1971, Guru Rugu helped co-found the experimental meditation center of los angeles—which has no center—with artist Adam Overton. Since 2010, Guru Rugu has worked intimately with Signify, Sanctify, Believe, a cute crew of religious technologists and publishing anarchivists hearkening from Los Angeles. He has worked with many other illustrious experimental healers, artists, and writers, including Veranda Moot and Matador Oven. Guru Rugu currently hosts Guru Rugu's Experimental Meditation Hour on KCHUNG Radio AM1630 every 1st Sunday from 10-11pm and archived at http://gururugu.kchungradio.org. He also provides inspirational tweets daily at http://twitter.com/GuruHRugu. Though not formally acknowledged, it is well-known that Guru Rugu was the inspiration behind Matador Oven's provocative and influential tract, A Dabblerist Manifesto.
Gray Area Print represents the printmaking projects of Maggie Lomeli. Maggie is a master printer of Screenprinting, Lithography, and Letterpress. In 2009, she graduated from Tamarind Institute of Lithography in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she learned the art of collaborative fine art printmaking. As a collaborator, she works one-on-one with artists and designers to conceptualize projects utilizing printmaking.
